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“SHH!” Walt cut him off. “Mrs. Food’s coming.” Walt threw herself onto the floor in a lounging position to block Wallace, while Oscar flew back into his cage. Butterbean tried a variety of poses, but none of them felt right, so she ended up flopped on her tummy with her tongue lolling outof her mouth.

Their poses didn’t matter in the end, though. Mrs. Food didn’t even look at them as she walked back into the room carrying a tea tray.

She set the tray down on the coffee table and handed a mug of tea to Mrs. Third Floor.“Mildred,” she said slowly. “I don’t know what you saw, but we’ll get to the bottom of it. I promise.”

“But I told you—”

Mrs. Food held up her hand.“I know you think it’s ghosts, but it could be something else. We’ll do some investigating.”

“OOOOH! Investigating! Can we be investigators?” Butterbean hopped to her feet and looked at Walt with her best puppy dog eyes. “If we can’t do crimes anymore, we can be ghost investigators. Please?”

“GHOST HUNTERS! YEAH!” Marco cheered.

“YEAH!” Polo echoed.

Walt and Oscar exchanged a glance.“I don’t know how much we could do,” Walt said. “If Mrs. Food gets involved, it’ll be hard. It’s not like she’ll take us along with her.”

Butterbean narrowed her eyes.“Or will she?”

Oscar cocked his head.“Probably not, Bean.”

Butterbean slumped.“Yeah, I know. But maybe. OR WE CAN BE SECRET INVESTIGATORS! BEHIND THE SCENES.”

“I really appreciate this, guys,” Wallace sniffled. “I really liked having an apartment. I was going to invite you over for a sleepover and everything.” His chin started to quiver.

Walt patted Wallace on the head, her whiskers trembling. She’d never been on a sleepover.

Mrs. Food cleared her throat.“Now, first things first. As soon as Madison gets back, we’ll take a look at this haunted apartment, and then we’ll figure this all out.” She patted Mrs. Third Floor briskly on the shoulder.

“Thank you, Beulah.” Mrs. Third Floor gave Mrs. Food a watery smile. Mrs. Food smiled back brightly. But when she turned away, Mrs. Food’s smile disappeared completely.

“Got that, guys?” Walt looked up at the clock. “Madison will be back any minute. When they leave, we can check in with Chad. He might have heard something about ghosts.”

Chad was the last member of their heisting gang, known by his nickname“the Octopus.” (A nickname he’d gotten because he was, in fact, an octopus.)

“Good plan,” Oscar agreed. “And while you do that, I can hold down the fort here.” He eyed the clock. If Madison got home soon, he might be able to catch the second half of the News.

The waiting was agony.

Walt watched the door. Marco and Polo shot encouraging looks and thumbs-ups to Wallace. Mrs. Food and Mrs. Third Floor sipped tea and nibbled awkwardly on cookies. Butterbean focused on looking cute and watching for stray cookie crumbs. (She kind of forgot about the whole ghost thing once the cookies came out.) And Oscar watched the clock. He was going to miss the rest of the News. He just knew it.

They were so focused on waiting that it came as a shock when Madison finally burst into the room.

“Mrs. Fudeker! Did you hear about Mr. Wiggles? He’s disappeared!” She dumped her book bag on the floor next to the front door and then checked the kitchen quickly before rushing into the living room. “I saw him during my field trip the other day. I bet I was one of the last people to see him before he—”

She stopped short when she saw Mrs. Third Floor on the couch, sniffling.

“Oh. Um. Hi, Mrs.…”

“Third Floor,” Butterbean barked. “Mrs. Third Floor.”

“Mildred, you know Madison. She’s Ruby Park’s niece. She’s living here temporarily, and I thought she might like to go up with us to check out the… um… activity in your apartment.”

“Yes, that would be nice,” Mrs. Third Floor said bleakly. She sounded like she’d given up all hope.

Madison shifted from one foot to the other.“Sure. So, what kind of activity?”

“Paranormal,” Mrs. Third Floor sniffled.

“Mildred thinks she has a ghost,” Mrs. Food said matter-of-factly. She didn’t meet Madison’s eyes.

“Oh, wow.” Madison’s eyebrows shot up. “Um, okay. I can help,” she said, nodding slowly. “Ghosts stink.”

“We’ll just take a look, real quick.” Mrs. Food nodded. “Just to see what there is to see.”

“Um. Okay,” Madison said. “I’m up for it, I guess.” Ghosts sounded weird, but she’d been in some pretty weird situations before. She glanced over at the rat aquarium. There were some things she didn’t even try to understand.

Butterbean dragged her eyes away from the cookies and hurried over to Madison.“I’ve got to try,” she muttered to Oscar as she went. “We could be an International Investigator Syndicate! Famous detectives!”

Butterbean leaned hard against Madison’s leg and looked up significantly. She really wished Madison had learned to speak Dog.

When Madison looked down, Butterbean shot another significant look at the door and then looked back up at Madison expectantly. It was the best she could do.